


Thicker Than Blood

by Pinx_B



Category: Touhou Project
Genre: Blood, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Injury, Violence, Yuri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:08:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29014884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pinx_B/pseuds/Pinx_B
Summary: Following Shinki's successful plans to expand Makai beyond Gensokyo, the world is plunged into a new order, resulting in division and distrust as Reimu is left to deal with the fallout of a murder close to them both..
Relationships: Hakurei Reimu/Alice Margatroid
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	Thicker Than Blood

* * *

Alice swept the back of her knuckles over Reimu's cheek, her skin flushed as the light breeze from the open window swept in. 

The last thing Reimu wanted to wake up from the enclove of bliss surrounding her as she soaked in the attention being lathered on her. 

"Hey" came her groggy greeting which Alice chuckled at affectionately. 

"Good morning, Reimu". 

The woman couldn't agree more as she hooked her arms behind Alice's head, pulling her back onto the mattress and pressing her lips against her neck. Her skin was revealed in a tantalising amount thanks to the low cut white nightdress she had on and Reimu couldn't refrain from just touching her. 

"Tired?" Alice teased and toyed with the long strands of brunette while her leg rested over Reimu's hip and thigh, keeping her close. 

Reimu murmured something unintelligible which made Alice smile against her shoulder, kissing the bare skin near her t-shirt. 

"Is _this_ what I get to enjoy for the rest of my life?". 

"Lucky you" Reimu grinned and moved her head back to look at her fiancée, "One of the perks of becoming my wife tomorrow". 

"Oh, is that so?". 

Reimu's hand rubbed up and down Alice's back, her reddened lips melding with Alice's. 

It was an answer in itself, one that the blonde happily acquiesced to whilst locking her arms around Reimu's waist. 

She couldn't have imagined that she and Reimu would be here, together. 

They were hidden away in a slice of paradise with the many that resisted the control of her mother's regime. 

Going off the radar was difficult after Gensokyo's collapse, and then the rest of Earth after Shinki decided to venture out and nothing could stop her. 

Her mother's power had gotten to her head which gave Yukari no choice but to initiate a counterattack, reclaiming back enough leverage to push Shinki down. 

To obtain this peace. 

But Alice knew her mother, only the battle had been won, not the war. 

So as they readied themselves for a fight that would be brought to their doorstep in a world where technology and magic had prospered after Shinki's takeover, Alice wanted to savour these soft moments. 

With the woman she loved. 

The following evening, they would tie the knot as the day after was the estimated arrival of Shinki and her army. 

Alice was ready to sacrifice _anything_ and _everything_ for Reimu, for harmony. 

Something she reaffirmed when they drew back from the kiss and their fingertips lightly scaled skin. 

"We've got this, Alice" Reimu reassured and linked their left hand together to kiss the blonde's knuckle, "She isn't gonna win. I won't let her take you away from me". 

Alice exhaled, heart pounding as a loving smile braced her lips. 

She believed her, trusted Reimu with all that she was. 

"I love you, Reimu" she replied, lips dotting over the other woman's, "I can't do this without you". 

Reimu, already feeling light-headed from the feeling of having her lover in her arms, pushed herself over Alice and settled over her thighs. 

Her hands cupped the blonde's face, thumbs grazing her cheekbones as her lips landed firmly over Alice's. 

The kiss was ardent, reassuring, solid. 

A physical representation of what she would be for Alice 

What she _always_ had been and no war against her mother was going to change that.

"You won't have to, Alice". 

The blonde suspired, "Reimu". 

The declaration was hearty, Reimu's crimson eyes loaded with the essence of her soul for this woman alone, "I'll always be by your side". 

"Promise me". 

Reimu smiled, lips fleeting over Alice's. 

"I promise". 

As soon as the word's slipped out of Reimu's mouth, the scenery around them shifted. 

The change was so drastic, like a painter smearing their hand over a freshly painted canvass, melding all the colours together to form something that no longer made sense. 

Reimu sat up and rested on Alice's hips as panic covered her like a metal chain coiling around her larynx. 

The blonde spluttered, hands scratching at her own throat to try and free the air that was being trapped.

She couldn't breath, tasted blood, felt _her_ hands around her neck. 

" _No, not now! Please, mother!_ ". 

The white sheets beneath them became bloodied, wet and sticky. 

Alice's eyes bulged as a wave of blood spurted up from her mouth, no longer able to claw away at her own throat as Reimu was paralysed by what was happening. 

The room around them morphed into blazing scarlet and burnt orange, flames licking across every surface. 

"Alice!". 

Reimu's scream didn't reach her when a staff barrelled down from the ceiling and impaled the Alice's heart, the splatter of blood showering Reimu as the dread in the brunette's stomach felt like cement. 

She screamed again, hands flailing around in disarray as the motionless image of her fiancée laying there stopped the flow of rationality from making her act. 

Reimu's hands were about to reach for Alice's when the bedroom wall behind them shattered away. 

A fluorescent burst of crimson blinded her before it dwindled away and she could look at the area again. 

Reimu wish she hadn't. 

Alice's body was no longer beneath her. 

She stumbled backwards onto the bed as eyes similar to Alice's peered back at her, the woman's lips turned up in a sneer. 

"Shinki".

The goddess chuckled as her daughter's lifeless body was lifted in the air from where she was still impaled on the purple spikes of her silver staff, body sagging forwards. 

She resembled a puppet and in this case, Shinki was the ventriloquist. 

"Did you really think I would hand her over to you so easily, Hakurei Reimu?". 

Reimu's eyes were flooded with tears that cleaned a streak from the blood that had sprayed onto her. 

"Did you honestly believe that Alice could turn her back on her duties as the future queen of Makai, the world?" she scoffed and pulled her staff in so that Alice's body was in her reach, "I warned you, I warned _her_.." she said, tone glacial as she ruffled Alice's red tinged hair, "Reap the seeds you sowed, Reimu. This is _your_ doing!". 

"No!". 

Shinki's voiced boomed as her wings glowed an eerie incandescent hue that lit up the silhouette of her daughter's dead form. 

"She is dead because of _you_!". 

"No!". 

The word kept repeating out of her Reimu's mouth as the world around her began to fade, blacking out from the edges till her hysteria consumed her. 

Alice was dead. 

She was dead because of her. 

"No!". 

The feint echo of her refusal to admit to such a torrid statement brought Reimu back from the memory of that day. 

Her breath had stalled in her throat, making the woman cough violently whilst becoming accustomed to her present. 

The obsidian coloured vastness of space reflected back into Reimu's crimson eyes as the radiance from a nearby planet illuminated her her spaceship's course. 

Swirls of pink, cerulean and brown appear around the planet as she tried to recall the name but it was inefficacious.

Her mind was a chasm of emptiness, fuelled by the remnants of the narcotics she had taken earlier which sent her into a spiral of a nightmare which consisted of both the truths and lies. 

Reimu shook her head, chills running rampage over her body.

It was time, she needed to do it one last time.

There was nothing left for her in the universe.

All she was reduced to being was a mindless human with too much time on her hands, a drug habit and a spaceship she had stolen. 

Reimu laughed to herself as she stumbled back to her work station, her eyes taking in the few pictures she had managed to salvage before she was ousted from earth.

It beat the alternative of succumbing to the control of Shinki's empire so she fled with whatever memories she had left of her life on Terra.

Nobody was spared, either captured or killed, a parable that would resonate for generations to come. 

Everyone she knew was gone, everyone she cared for. 

There was no way to contact anyone after the displacement occurred as a consequence of Shinki's hostile takeover. Reimu was lost the moment Shinki had killed Alice and she would've have died herself if Meira and Yukari hadn't intervened in stopping Shinki. 

But it wasn't enough, Shinki was too powerful and had apprehended the youkai sage. 

Reimu just ran, an order by Yukari as thoughts of Alice's corpse rotted her own mind. 

What occurred after was a blur for the woman, hiding till she had a chance to flee. 

Relinquishing her hold on her dreams and Alice. 

"We had plans, Alice" she slurred and poked the electronic picture frame, "Dying wasn't one of them. What the fuck am I supposed to do now?".

The empty interior of her ship couldn't offer her a reply but she knew something that could.

With shaky hands, she rummaged through her stash of substances, searching for something potent, something that wouldn't make her feel alone and lost.

The cosmos wasn't legislated, she was free to do as she pleased.

"What else am I meant to do" she muttered whilst readying the spoon, citric acid, water, lighter and hypodermic needle.

The brown substance bubbled gently and Reimu just watched, her eyes devoid of anything resembling human.

She swore out loud, her choler’s building while she discarded her black shirt to wrap a cord around her upper left hand after filling the syringe with the substance.

"Better.." she sighed when the needle met her vein and she pushed down, injecting herself till she couldn't cogitate on her abysmal existence.

Till _she_ returned.

Reimu passed out not long after the initial high, revelling in the euphoric sensation she was experiencing till a familiar voice called her back to the living.

"Reimu".

Her bleary eyes opened to espy the apparition of her lover stood near the control pit.

Reimu's mouth was dry so she licked her lips and sat up in her chair.

"Alice...you're here".

The blonde smiled, "I never left you".

"Yeah you fucking did" Reimu scoffed and stood up on shaky legs, "You left me".

She bared her teeth as she ambled towards Alice.

Everything around her pirouetted, the scenery becoming frenetic.

She slammed her eyes shut as she blindly walked to where Alice was.

"I know, I'm sorry" Alice replied, her tone morose as she watched the empty shell that Reimu was now, "But it isn't meant to end this way for you. This isn't _you_ , Reimu".

The brunette snickered bitterly, boot clad feet dragging now as her rigid movements became hardened, her joints too fixated.

All she focused on was the blue of her deceased lover's eyes, the radiant yellow of her hair and those lips, so pink and welcoming.

For Reimu, those were the only traits graspable. 

"This is me, there is nothing left of, of what I was when you were here. I have nothing!".

"Oh, sweetheart" Alice said with a heavy tone as Reimu reached her, "I miss you too" she added as Reimu's hands gripped her shoulders, "But you're not alone. You can _fight_ this".

Reimu buried her head between Alice's chest as the blonde's arms curled around her upper back, "Not without you. I let you die, I let _her_ kill you. I should have known, should have guessed her fucking strategy". 

The blonde smiled as she ran her fingers through her lover's matted hair, damp and warm. She could feel the tingle of the stab wound behind her back, the red liquid staining the last outfit she wore, her nightdress. 

But the guilt was not Reimu's, something she made sure the woman was aware of.

Not only when she was dying in her arms, but long after in bid to expiate the guilt her fiancée harboured. 

Her mother was to blame for the devastation, for causing hell to break loose.

It was Alice's supposed retribution for refusing to go against Reimu's side during their attempted uprising. 

"No, Reimu" Alice whispered and pressed her cold lips over Reimu's head, "You protected me, protected the ones we love. My death was her doing. But it doesn't have to be in vain, you can get through this. You deserve a better life than this, don't you see? I want you to live". 

"How?".

Reimu's breath shuddered against her chest as her arms slung down Alice's back. 

The idea of doing this without Alice seemed absurd to her. 

She was alone now, her friends being displaced from earth too. 

"By doing what you do best" Alice smiled and hugged the woman tighter, "By being the line between good and evil, by being its defender". 

"I..I don't know if I can go back to being that, Alice". 

"Of course you can, my love. It's never too late. I believe in you". 

Where there should have been a heartbeat, there was nothing. 

But despite this, Reimu felt the heat magnify in her body. Both through Alice's words and the drugs roaming in her system. 

The chills had ceased, her heart restarting as she took in the presence of Alice with her. 

"It's too warm". 

Alice rubbed Reimu's back and laughed softly, "That's because it isn't your time yet, Reimu. Go back to them, they need you. And don't forget that I love you". 

"Who needs me?" Reimu questioned as her eyes watered, grip on the blonde increasing, "I love you, Alice. Don't leave me". 

Alice cradled the woman's face, her thumbs brushing away her distraught lover's tears. She placed a delicate kiss beneath each eye lid before offering the brunette one final kiss. 

She knew she wouldn't be able to see Reimu again and she was relieved. 

Content that her fiancée would finally attain peace. 

Reimu's lips felt icy as Alice's melded against them, one final act of devotion to last for eternity. 

"I love you". 

As Alice faded, Reimu clung onto her tighter. 

Her grip abated as a wave of air wrapped around her. 

It woke her up from her drug induced daze and Reimu found herself back at her workstation, eyes heavy as her body trembled. 

"Alice". 

She bit the inside of her cheek and slammed her fists on the desk. 

Loneliness subsumed her again. 

But a beeping from her control system punctuated the silence. 

It was a video call. 

The brunette groaned in vexation and pulled up the holographic control system. 

Accepting the call, all her discomfiture disappeared the moment the connection was formed. 

"Ah, there she is. You're a difficult woman to get a hold of, Reimu". 

Reimu blinked her eyes rapidly as she looked at the faces floating on her screen, convinced she was still in the midst of hallucinating. 

"Yukari?". 

The blonde smirked and gave a light wave. 

"Sup, Reimu! Long time" Marisa grinned, flashing a peace sign. 

Eirin smiled, already making a list in her mind of the medical care that Reimu would need, "It's good to see you again". 

"Yeah, you sure know how to hide!" Sanae beamed. 

Reimu's mouth dropped slightly. 

They were all there, _alive_. 

Remilia, Kaguya, Youmu, Seija, Keiki, Junko and everyone else that had retaliated against Shinki. 

Yukari's chuckle snapped the woman out of her reverie. 

"If you'd be so kind as to unseal the docking station, we have a lot of work to. Earth isn't going to save itself from Shinki" she smiled, her gaze softening, "Alice is expecting as much from you, remember?". 

Reimu could only exhale a short laugh as she shook her head, not quite believing the events. 

"Yeah, you're right. I can't let her down". 

Because Alice was right, she wasn't alone.

***

**_1 year later_ **

  
Pandæmonium was a war zone as Yukari and her allies poured into every crevice of the palace. 

Just as Shinki had unleashed a surprise attack on them, they too had repaid the favour. 

It was years in the making whilst searching for Reimu and it now had come to fruition. 

Demons and humans that had sided with Shinki fell like flies, the allies ploughing through them with the energy which had culminated from the despair that had been ushered to the world. 

Not one foe would live to tell the tale of a grieving force that waited for the precise moment to enact their revenge. 

The stench of death covered hell as bodies were littered wherever there was a solid surface. 

Decapitated heads were kicked away whilst the two groups collided. 

Screams of anguish reverberated around the hollow caverns when wings were being torn. 

Flesh being ripped away by sharp claws landed on surfaces with a sickening splat. 

But what was ongoing inside of the main room in the palace made everything else appear tame. 

Shinki's guttural cry of pain rippled through the atmosphere as Yumeko plunged her dual swords down her spine, severing the flesh and her wings. 

It was Yumeko that had been the key to locating Shinki after the goddess had relocated Makai. 

The demon had no choice in her schemes of duplicity as her mistress had become unhinged. 

The final straw for the woman to turn her back on her creator was the murder of Alice. 

Reimu's yin yang orbs pummelled into the goddess's stomach, flaying the flesh away till her innards were revealed. The brunette was sweating as her breath clenched in her oesophagus, her gohei in hand as she lifted it, hitting Shinki's cheek with it. 

The sounds of skin burning permeated the air as sizzles followed the plume of stygian smoke. 

Shinki laughed as the binds around her body kept her grounded and on her knees. 

Reimu's ofuda alone wouldn't have been enough to keep a being like her trapped so the charms circling her were composed up of spells by Byakuren, Marisa, Yukari, Patchouli and Eirin. 

"You've been killing me for two hours, Reimu. You know I cannot die, unlike that useless daughter of mine". 

Yukari sighed, the youkai perched on a gap as several others remained in the room, watching Reimu unleash her pent up rancour on the woman that had taken Alice away from her. 

Her own mother. 

The jibe snapped at Reimu's nerves which led to her dropping her gohei as she raced up to the woman and began punching her. 

"You.." she panted, each thud of her knuckles landing on Shinki's face creating a harrowing display of the former priestess’s physical strength, "You fucking coward!". 

"Charming" Shinki coughed. 

Her fists was bleeding now, the bone showing as she gripped Shinki's hair and made her look up. 

"You're gonna regret _everything_ you have done, Shinki" Reimu breathed out heavily, her energy reaching diminution, "I know I can't kill you, I..know. But there is a fate worse than death for you".

Shinki's cold eyes pinned Reimu's as she snarled, "I _create_ death, you insolent human. There is no scope of death that I haven't felt". 

"You're not as untouchable as you believe, Shinki" Reimu managed a wry grin, "There are forces in this world that are far more frightening than demons or goddesses".

The faces around them remained stoic, heeding the truth of Reimu's words. 

Yuuka was just about holding Marisa back as Yumeko had returned to Byakuren's side, the priestess tending to her injures. 

Kanako had her shimenawa curled around Shinki's form, just in case she found a way free from the amulets as Yuyuko was on standby. 

Sakuya, Sanae, Reisen and Youmu had their one means of keep Shinki imprisoned. 

Junko, Eirin and Yukari were assessing the situation carefully and Shinki caught their eyes. 

"You believe that _they_ will be enough to kill me?" she scoffed incredulously, "I am a goddess". 

"That's nothing new here" Okina commented from a perch Yukari had set up, "Look around you". 

"You are merely one of many, Shinki" Eirin added. 

"A goddess is merely a title" Yukari continued as she hovered down and gently took a hold of Reimu's hand to pull her back, "To make yourself worthy of prayer, of faith is another story. Two things you have no more of since all of your followers are dead. Trust in you has reached a terminus. Haven't you noticed, you are not healing as rapidly as you were two hours ago".

Shinki was breathing erratically as the four sets of swords and multiple knives stuck to her back were pushed in deeper

"It's over, Shinki, it's the end of the world for you" Reimu reaffirmed, clutching Alice's grimoire in her hand after retrieving it from her own gap, "You have no place to exist anymore". 

The book floated above as the magicians in the room summoned their power to aid in the final annihilation of Shinki. 

"This isn't Gensokyo, there are no rules. They disappeared when _you_ waged with the world". 

Byakuren's words were harsh, her eyes radiating disgust for a woman she once cared about. 

"So.." Reimu exhaled and relaxed her shoulders, "This is the end for you". 

"You will all fail!" Shinki screeched as she squirmed, "This isn't over!". 

Yukari merely rolled her eyes as she nodded to everyone in the room, unifying their abilities to seal Shinki away in a place at the outer edge of the universe, trapping her in a barren and inhabitable planet that would become her tomb. 

It was the place where death was already occurring, where nothing survived and those that did were doomed to endlessly remain bound on the surface of such a hostile planet. 

The room became alight, all the colours of the spectrum uniting to open a seal in Alice's grimoire which contained cataclysmic spells that Alice had hoped to never need to use. 

But that had changed and now, she could aid those she loved in ridding the demon that was her mother. 

She could aid Reimu in attaining peace. 

Beams of light exited from the book as Reimu watched with sharp eyes. 

A presence wrapped around her shoulders while Shinki's screams pierced the air, the beams of light covering ever inch of her till she was concealed. 

Each beam burrowed beneath the goddess's form, combating the darkness she was imbued of till nothing but particles remained, waiting to follow Shinki to a hell that not even she could comprehend. 

There was something macabre yet mesmeric about what they were all bearing witness to. 

The apparition of Alice appeared one more time, her arms swung down Reimu's chest as her cheeks pressed against her lover's cheek. 

Reimu smiled, tears dripping as she felt Alice over her. 

" _You did it, Reimu_ " Alice's ghostly whisper stated, " _I promised you that we wouldn't have to deal with her alone_ ".

"Alice" Reimu choked with a sob, "Don't leave me again". 

" _Silly woman_ " Alice laughed softly, voice choral, " _I'll always be with you. I love you, Reimu"_. 

The fading words lingered in her ear as the form of Shinki's existence slowly disappeared with her daughter's. 

Yukari's arms were ready when Reimu's knees trembled, the building shuddering as it began to disintegrate.

It was done, Shinki's existence was no more. 

Everything linked to the woman was going to die now. 

Yumeko and Byakuren's heart-breaking goodbyes could be heard as the blonde smiled. She pressed a kiss to the woman's lips before stepping back and bowing to everyone else. 

Her work was done, she would be joining Alice. 

Yumeko's yellow eyes remained on Reimu, offering her a final goodbye and a message that this was just the start for her. 

That Alice wanted her to _live_. 

Reimu thanked her and smiled as Yumeko disintegrated away. 

It was time for them all to leave. 

"Let's go home, Reimu" Yukari said gently. 

A large gap and several back doors to the surface opened up. 

It was time to return to a world where a balance could be restored.

Reimu clutched the grimoire close to her chest, signing out in reprieve at the results. 

While Alice's form was gone, her soul remained on earth. 

Waiting for the day Reimu's would join her. 

And till that day, Reimu would ensure that Alice lived on. 

Through the memories. 

Through the recovery. 

Through the rebirth. 


End file.
